1. rightness (n) a: accordance with conscience or morality b: appropriate conduct; doing the right thing c: conformity to fact or truth 2. truth (n) a: the state of being the case b: the body of real things, events, and facts

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

TURNING UP THE HEAT

The heat is on, on the streetInside your head, on every beatAnd the beat's so loud, deep insideThe pressure's high, just to stay alive'Cause the heat is on~ Glenn Frey.

It seems like Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan (TAK) has been seriously turning up the heat in recent days.

Stratfor has a write up on recent events, especially an attack in Adana on 4 August:

The first bomb, the smaller of the two, exploded at a bank in downtown Adana, injuring two bank security guards. About 10 minutes later, a second, larger device detonated at a nearby construction site, damaging nearby shops and police cars, and injuring at least five police officers. It appears the attackers detonated the smaller device with the intention of drawing Turkish police and security forces into the area, and then set off the second explosion to take out these first responders. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the explosions, but Turkey has often been the scene of bomb attacks attributed to left-wing groups, Islamist militants and Kurdish separatists.

NEWSDESK, Aug 8 (DozaMe.org) - A lure-and-kill-trap attack by the Kurdish militant organization TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Falcons) in the city of Adana in southern Turkey left 18 people wounded, among them 12 police officers.

The target was an OYAK Bank, which is run by the Turkish military. A report from last year indicates that OYAK would like to diversify, while some of us would just like to see them put out of business. The most significant aspect of the TAK attack is that it used two bombs, as DozaMe and Stratfor describe. By the way, TAK's statement is carried at the TAK link, above.

This attack, along with five others in two days time at the end of July, it certainly looks like they aim to escalate. Check DozaMe and KurdishInfo for more.

In other news, HPG carried out a successful attack against a Turkish military intelligence (JITEM) non-commissioned officer, in Şirnex province of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. You gotta love Şirnex; it's a veritable hotbed of Kurdish patriots. It's great to know that the chief of the local JITEM rathole is pushing up daisies these days.

Activity is picking up in Iran too. I guess the evil mullahs are none too happy about Kurds in pasdaran forces slitting Iranian throats and then making the defection to HPG. That's why they're now offering rewards for every dead gerîla that's brought in. When the evil mullahs realize that the virgin thing isn't cutting it and they start offering money, you know they're desperate.

Turkey shares that desperation, from the Stratfor link:

Despite increased fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish militants in eastern Turkey, the militants still have been able to carry out -- and even escalate -- attacks. Ankara, which understands the tourism industry's importance to the country's economy, likely is sparing no effort to prevent attacks and eliminate the TAK threat. Thus far, however, the Turkish National Police and intelligence agencies have been unable to do either. With little to stop it, the TAK can be expected to escalate its campaign against Ankara.

I had to point out all this activity because, in yesterday's post, the GIS/D&FA source noted the following:

In any event, PKK forces are reportedly well aware of the pace of Turkish invasion planning and report themselves to be ready for the confrontation.

A few weeks ago, on 21 July, HPG issued a statement which included the following:

The HPG (People’s Defence Forces) Headquarters Commander Dr. Bahoz Erdal said that the Turkish military and the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government was responsible for the escalation of conflict, stating, “if they become insistent on violence and non-resolution then the guerilla will extend to the Mediterranean and Aegean.”

Both TAK and HPG are turning up the heat, kicking it up a notch, upping the ante, and it looks like HPG is sending the message that it's capable of urban operations in the Meditarranean and Aegean. None of this has to be because there is one simple way to solve it all: Occupying forces out of Kurdistan.

To say that the natives are pissed off and restless, is an understatement. However, given the events in the last couple of weeks, at least they're smiling.

No, TAK will not resolve anything. They are carrying out attacks that do not fit into our Kurdish struggle. I wish PKK would condemn the TAK if they are truly not affiliated with one another like they say...

If you have a roach infestation, do you care who comes to exterminate them? Of course not. Turkish security forces are far worse than roaches; each one of them is a murderer, a rapist, a sadist. Whoever comes along and removes them from the field has done a service for humanity.

Will it resolve the issue? What do you think?

As for HPG condemning TAK, would you really believe then that TAK is not affiliated with HPG? I hardly think so. An enemy will not believe any explanation and a friend won't need one.

It doesn't matter if Turkey does not believe HPG's condemnation. The fact is that it will be out there and they will in at least one respect disassociate themselves from the barbaric acts of the TAK. The problem with TAK is not their war on the Turkish state but their tactics of carrying out this war, which involves the killings of innocent civilians. Telling tourists to stop being tourists and coming to Turkey is not good enough. Neither is it good enough for groups like Al- Qaeda to tell Americans to stop paying taxes to their governments and being Americans.

TAK does not fit in the Kurdish struggle. The Kurdish struggle is a legitimate one. The Kurdish people have rights that must be fulfilled. Every Kurdish party and individual should condemn TAK. They make what is a legitimate struggle nothing more than terror against civilians.

I question the innocence of anyone who gives material, financial, and moral support to Turkish security forces. It is irrelevant to me whether they are tourists, US congressmen, Boeing employees, or anyone else.

Like I said, that question is just about as good as Al Qaeda's questioning of any American who gives financial support to the U.S. Government through paying taxes. It is stupid.

Thanks for that article. I hope HPG maintains that stance and does not have ties with TAK. TAK should be regarded as an enemy of the Kurdish people for their arrogant destruction of the legitimacy of our struggle.

The problem with your argument, Anonymous, is that TAK is nothing like al-Q. TAK is not engaged in a world-wide war to enforce it's ideology on anyone else. It has stated its mission, and that mission clearly is nothing like al-Q's mission. . . or Iran's mission, or Turkey's mission.

There is also the fact that if Kurds would publicly protest arms sales legislation to Turkey, point out why tourism to Turkey is unethical (see this for an alternative), and push all of the issues surrounding Turkish occupation, I bet a lot of these problems would have been settled long ago and there would be no TAK today. There would be no HPG. There would be less destroyed villages and IDPs, etc.

Everybody makes choices so everybody needs to be ready to take responsibility for their choices.

Let's not debate as to why there is a TAK or HPG and why there isn't. I think those facts are quite obvious to us. However, it nevertheless should be understood that these murders committed by TAK are not what the Kurdish struggle has been about or should be about. You ignore something very simple. That thing is that the Kurdish struggle has always been explicit as a legitimate one carried out by Kurdish activists for the betterment of their people. The current disgusting acts taken by TAK against civilians is disrespectful to this legitimate Kurdish struggle that so many Kurds have died for. TAK is contaminating this struggle with their gross acts. They are putting themselves in the same basket as those digusting and sick extremist terrorists and they are attempting to put the Kurdish struggle in that basket with them.

This may come as a newsflash to you, Anonymous, but nobility of cause has done nothing for Kurds. Nothing.

Nobility of cause has not brought the Ankara regime to the negotiating table. It has not ended Syrian abuses. It doesn't even make Ahmedinejad shake in his mini-sized boots, and please don't tell me that the Americans came and overthrew Saddam because they were so awestruck by the nobility of the Kurdish cause. They didn't do it for YOUR black eyes, pal.

Nobility of cause hasn't made even the slightest impression on the West either. They simply do not give a fat rat's ass about Kurds, whether the methods of the cause, or the cause itself, are noble or not.

So I don't CARE who or what TAK blows up because I know no one CARES what happens to Kurds. The world doesn't respect you at all, regardless of the dubious distinction that nobility of cause may bring. Since the world does not respect respect Kurds, no matter what Kurds do, then as far as I'm concerned, let them FEAR.

Everybody knows what they have to do to get TAK to stop its operations. Just do it, dude, just do it.

When will you inferior kurds stop the terrorism? Turkish government nneds to follow saddam's way and use chemical weapons to end this kurdish "disease". I cannot see any other way out of this kurdish problem